


...And the Helpful Faeries

by GrumpyJenn



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fae & Fairies, Other, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3677694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnagramRMX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnagramRMX/gifts), [AerynB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerynB/gifts), [justlook3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlook3/gifts).



It started with the leprechaun.

No, it properly started with their first adventure, the one where they’d met and Cass’d gone to the other side when she thought the Brotherhood would help her, would help the world. And Ezekiel watched after she pined away for Jake, who didn’t trust her after that. Or at least he said he didn’t, but Ezekiel had his doubts about _that_.

But _this_ part of the story started with the leprechaun.

Ezekiel had found the little guy, of course, because who else would search out a pot of gold in the Library? Then it had turned into a whole adventure, and at the end of it, well… maybe it would all work out after all...


	2. March 17 - Ezekiel

“Bloody hell!"

Ezekiel Jones hadn’t meant to shout quite so loudly, but he’d been… surprised by the – _was_ it a leprechaun? – popping up in front of him as he rounded the corner of the brightly-colored shelves and approached what appeared to be a pot of…

Oh. Rainbow. Pot of gold.

Right then, of course there was a leprechaun. Why not? It was even mid-March, and all the little scene lacked was a four-leaf… and Zeke sighed as the leprechaun held up a small green plant and rolled its eyes at him.

“Don’t suppose you’ll give me any of the gold, now I’ve caught you?” Couldn’t hurt to ask after all.

“Nay, foolish mortal. But ye knew that,” it said. Then, “Leastways… no, never ye mind.”

“What?” Did it have to leave him hanging like that?

“Well, I could see me way clear to partin’ with some of it… if ye granted me a boon…”

 _Wait_ , Zeke thought, _it’s never safe to make a deal with any of the little beasties in stories or in the Library. You never know when you might be promising your soul or something_ … Besides, no matter how pretty the gold was, Zeke didn’t really care enough to try.

There was very little Zeke cared enough about to try.

“It’s yer friend, pretty little Irish lass.” _Except that. Cassie I care about_ … he snapped his attention back to the tiny red-haired elf at his feet.  “Aye,” it was saying, “Cassandra Cillian. Trips off the tongue, the name does. ‘Tennyrate, she’s got the Sight.” It looked at Zeke expectantly.

Zeke sighed. “I know. It’s killing her.”

The leprechaun nodded. “Aye, it is. But more than that, the lass has eyes for yer other friend, an’ he for her. But they won’t say so, of course. Mortals!” It threw its hands in the air in exasperation. “T’ain’t the Sight that’s killin’ her so much as the thought he don’t want her. The which he does.”

“Yeah, mate, it’s obvious.”

“And yerself? How about you?” At Zeke’s blank look it rolled its eyes again. “D’ye _like_ her, lad? D’ye want her for yerself?”

“Me? No, god, she’s like my sister!”

The leprechaun looked disappointed for a split second, then smiled. Its smile reached literally from ear to ear, which Zeke found a little disconcerting. But he’d seen worse. “Well then, no triangle. That’s refreshing.” And for just a moment, the Irish lilt was gone from the little man’s voice, replaced by something that sounded... older, wilder somehow to Zeke, though he couldn’t identify the accent.

“What do you want in exchange for your gold, then?” Zeke asked reasonably.

“Why, just yer words, lad. The whys and the wherefores.” The leprechaun sighed impatiently. “I want ye t’tell me what I can do t’get them where they ought t’be. Romantically speaking, y’see.”

“Why me?”

“Ye know the pair of them better than anyone, don’t ye? And yer the one as wants some of me fairy gold…”

Zeke made a decision. He sort of loved Cassie, and Stone was okay, and if it got him the leprechaun’s gold, then... “All right then,” he said, a bit cautiously. “First off, what kind of things can you do?”


	3. April 1 - Cassandra

_And the joke is on me,_ Cassandra Cillian thought sourly.

Oh, once the boys had realized the April Fool’s prank they’d pulled on her had actually scared her, they were very nice about it. Jake had even pulled her into a rough hug and apologized into her hair;  he was all _“I didn’t mean to upset you, not for real. It was just a prank. I’d never hurt you, Cass, you know that, right?”_

She did know that, but she’d still burst into tears; the memory of past childish pranks on the-weird-girl-with-the-seizures had been too much.

And now they both probably thought - again - that she was weak and stupid. Can’t take a joke, that’s Cassandra. And even if she could take a joke, it would throw her into either a math trance or a spate of hysterical tears.

Cassie hated that about herself; she wished she could just be _normal_. “Just normal,” she whispered, and started as she heard a wisp of music from around the corner of a shelf.

If they were playing another prank on her, so soon after the first one, she’d kill them both.

As she rounded the shelf, she realized that they weren’t. Or at least, if they were, they’d enlisted the help of an elderly woman in a cloak and hood, looking for all the world like she had stepped straight out of a… no.

A Fairy Godmother out of a children’s movie would be a bit much even for the Library. Wouldn’t it?

Apparently not, because the old lady smiled at her, and said in a kind, cultured voice, “You made a wish, dear, and you know the Lamp is never in the Library. Whom did you expect?”

“I didn’t expect anyone, to be truthful,” Cassandra said. “It wasn’t really a wish.”

“Of course it was, dear. But…” Here the woman paused, and her face grew grave. “You know the price?”

Cassandra went cold all over. “I already paid the price,” she said shortly. “I lost Ja-- their trust. I… oh, just forget it.”

“You have his trust more than you know, young Cassandra. Perhaps more than _he_ knows… or is willing to admit. He does care for you.”

“Not enough to trust me; I threw that chance away.”

“Bollocks,” the Godmother said, and for just a moment her voice sounded harsher and considerably less genteel. But then it evened out into the warm and motherly tone it had had before. Not that the words themselves were kind; Cassandra had the definite feeling she was being scolded. “Fold up the self pity, Cassandra, and put it away. You made a bad choice, it’s true. But you did nothing so bad as you believe, and you remedied the problem as soon as you were made aware of it.” Her voice softened further. “Come now, child. The only one you hurt forgave you before you finished making the mistake. And the other will come around; you’ll see.”

“Do you really think so?” She was near tears again, but these tears felt… more hopeful. Less despairing.

“Darling Cassandra. I’d wager my last glass slipper on it.”


	4. May 1 - Jacob

“You injure her, you know.” The voice was sad, sweet, with a faint hint of an accent. Maybe Greek? Or Italian, but old, very old.

Jacob Stone looked around but saw nothing that could speak. Although this was the Library, after all, so who really knew?

“Over here, young Stone,” the voice said, and it sounded amused. He went toward it, and came across a painting he had not seen before.

It looked like a Botticelli, with the distinctive presence of that artist’s favorite subject, the model for his famous _The Birth of Venus._ But it was not that particular painting, nor any other of Botticelli’s works with which Jacob was familiar.

 _Just as well,_ Jake thought, as the painting began to speak again. If it was _Venus_ or one the _Three Graces_ , her nudity might have been too distracting. But this lady was fully clothed in the high fashion of the Renaissance, and so Jake listened. “You injure her,” the lady said again, and Jake felt the back of his neck prickle.

This was not a special effect; the painted mouth was moving in the most natural way.

“Injure who?”

“Cassandra, of course,” she said with some asperity. “Did you not see her face when you gave her a posy early this morn? Such gestures give her hope for more, but more is not forthcoming.”

“A posy… but I always do that on May Day.”

“For a mother or a sister, yes. Do you consider yourself a son or a brother to Cassandra?” She laughed and for just a moment the exquisite face in the painting smirked unpleasantly and the chuckle sounded rough. “Or… a lover of course. Oh…” She paused, then gave him a beatific smile that somehow left Jake feeling uncomfortable. “But you don’t _trust_ her enough for that, do you?”

 _I_ … Jake thought, and stopped. He didn’t like being scolded like a child, but the lady in the painting had a point. Why didn’t he trust Cassie, after all they’d been through together? He did find her attractive, very, but it was like he didn’t _want_ to trust her, to care enough to...

“Oh…” breathed the lady in the painting, sympathetically now. “I see. If you let yourself love her, then you will lose her to her illness. And you only just realized that yourself. I _am_ sorry, young Stone.” And she looked it, she truly looked as if she felt sorrow on his behalf. “That would be the biggest betrayal of all, would it not?” Her voice grew fainter and fainter as she said this, but then she seemed to straighten (though the painting did not change at all) and she smiled at him. “I see that you would take the pain from her if you could, but do you know the price?”

“You’re right, I would take it from her,” Jake said, his voice hoarse and the country creeping in. “I…”

“You care for her.”

“Yes.” _Oh hell yes_. “I… can _you_ take the pain? You seem…”

She smiled again. “Magical?”

“I guess. Can you?”

The lady in the painting smiled one more time, sadly. “I do not know. It would have to be her choice, and she may not wish to pay the price. That is her decision to make.” She sighed, heavily, and a tear trickled down the painted cheek. “And even then, I know not whether I have the power.”

And then the painting was just a painting again.


	5. June 21 - the Librarians

Ezekiel felt restless as they prepared for their newest mission. He wasn’t really sure why; the description in the Clipping Book seemed normal enough.

Of course, in the Library, normal was a relative term.

But it was just something about obtaining a special ointment from a glade in a forest in England; there was nothing too strange about that. They’d done that sort of thing before.

So why was he restless?

Then he found out why.

 

^~^

 

“What. The. Hell?” Jacob was spitting mad, because suddenly they had found themselves in a forest clearing ringed with mushrooms,  and the damn fairies were playing tricks on them. Someone invisible had grabbed Jake and Ezekiel and smeared something gooey on their eyelids and let them go. And then they could see them. The Little People - _and these aren’t all_ that _little,_ Jake reflected; _about four feet tall, most of them_ \- stood in a semicircle around the three of them, brandishing spears and longbows and looking… Well, they looked _dangerous_. Short, slightly built, and remarkably like a junior high school production of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , but… oh _no_.

“Oh, yes,” said the tallest of them, who looked ridiculously like a drawing of Peter Pan, and reddish-brown hair with ivy threaded through it, and clothes made of what appeared to be oak leaves. He must have been all of four feet two, and he scared the crap out of Jake just from the look in his eye.

And Cassandra, for some reason, was completely composed, if a bit flushed. _Wait_ , thought Jake, _they didn’t get that stuff on Cassie’s eyes, and_ … for the second time in the past fifteen seconds Jake had a revelation.

Cassie could see the fairies.

Without the ointment - and now Jake recognized it as being from the play, of course - Cassie could see the fairies.

Oh, of course, why the hell not?

 _Maybe she can talk to them too_ , Jake thought, _because Jones’ll screw it up and I… well, I’m too mad. I’ll pick a fight_. He gestured with his eyes from Cassie to the tallest fairy, who had to be Robin Goodfellow.

Puck.

For God’s sake.

 

^~^

 

Cassandra smiled at Jake.

 _Fairies_ , she thought. _Fairies_! She took a deep breath, because Jake obviously wanted her to take the lead here, and she spoke. “Um… what dost thou want with we mortals?”

The tallest fairy man laughed and his eyes twinkled. “Do not trouble yourself, sweet Cassandra Cillian. The name trips off the tongue, does it not?” he said, and Cassie felt rather than heard a short gasp from Ezekiel.

“I guess I thought you’d be all mysterious and… otherworldly,” she ventured to say, and the little man smiled at her, showing all of his teeth.

They looked very sharp.

“Otherworldly, is it? I? Robin Goodfellow, or Puck if you like.” He bowed floridly. “I shall show you otherworldly.” He spun in a circle and there was a shorter, older-looking, redheaded elf in a green jacket in his place. “Would ye prefer a leprechaun, pretty Irish girl like yerself?” He spun again, and this time there was a kindly old woman. “Or a fairy godmother, dear?” Yet again, and a beautiful woman wearing clothes from the Renaissance. “A Roman goddess?” One last spin, and he was back to the first man. “I am they, and they are me. Would that be otherworldly enough for you, young Cassandra?”

Cassie swallowed hard, and nodded.

She felt Jake step forward and take her hand. “You’re scaring her,” he said harshly, and she smiled up at him.

“I’m not scared.” He looked doubtful, and she smiled at him. “A little intimidated, maybe,” she admitted softly, “but not scared.”

“Well said, young Cassandra!” The fairy man beamed at her.

Jake gave Cassandra a long and measuring look, nodded once, and turned to the fairy. “What _do_ you want with us, Puck?” His voice seemed… angry, Cassie thought, maybe even… ashamed? Guilty?

The fairy pouted. “Just to help her, of course,” he said, pointing at Cassandra.

“Me?” Cassie heard herself say, even as Jacob scowled at the little man.

 

^~^

 

“Forgive me,” he ground out through gritted teeth, “if I take your motives with a grain of salt. Or a _steel_ sword. You’re not exactly known for your altruism.”

The fairy man bared his teeth in what Jacob could not really call a smile, but then he sighed. “Old Will has a lot to answer for,” he said. “But that did work out in the end, didn’t it? They got what they wanted, and no-one was hurt by it.”

“That’s all I want here, for no-one to be hurt by your actions.”

“Or yours, young mortal,” Puck said in what was obviously a warning reminder of the conversation with the Botticelli painting.

“I never meant…”

“I know. But recall, mortal, that _fae_ implies capriciousness, not evil. I would not willingly injure her, any more than you would.”

“Why? I mean, I know my motives; you informed me of the ones I didn’t realize. I don’t want her hurt.”

Puck shrugged. “I like her. Now…” He waved one hand and a darkness that Jake hadn’t even been consciously aware of lifted. The fairy turned to Cassie. “What say you, young mortal girl? Would you have your pain taken from you?”

 

^~^

 

Cassandra stood, absorbing the question, and she was conscious of Jacob gripping her hand tightly and Ezekiel protesting that of course she wanted the pain taken from her, who wouldn’t? She felt herself slipping into a math spell, and she felt Jake’s hand slide from hers up her arm until his arm was around her waist. Allowing herself to lean into his support, she let the spell take her.

 _two things_  
are not  
always equal

 _pain equals power_  
power equals pain  
I am needed now...

And she had her answer.

“Can you take the pain,” Cassandra said almost conversationally to Robin Goodfellow, “without taking the power?”

The little man shook his head. “I do not yet know,” he admitted. “Even immortals must oft times research the weightier questions.”

Jake’s arm tightened around Cassie’s waist, and even Ezekiel was quiet.

“Then I will wait, until such time as it can be done without removing the power,” Cassandra said simply.

 

^~^

 

“You could’ve had the pain taken away,” Jacob was saying to Cassie, as Ezekiel followed them out of the forest glade. He was more comfortable in cities, so he was content to let them break trail or whatever you called such an activity.

Cassandra sighed. “I know. But what makes me special is the power, and the pain comes with that. I couldn’t be a Librarian without it.”

“It’s more than just the power that makes you special, Cass,” Ezekiel heard Stone murmur, and she smiled brilliantly up at him.

And then Zeke remembered.

“Bloody Hell! I never got any fairy gold!”


End file.
